As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I'll leave that for others to decide.

Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail - a kind of home, I suppose.

There is a different kind of vulnerability when a woman is directing

This is the first generation to grow up on Thatcher - it's a different ethos. It's money minded, and it's the cult of yourself. Now that's fine, except when it falls down, and you can't achieve your goals - through high unemployment, through the fact that you probably need inherited money to get anywhere.

I think feature film can be quite conservative, because you have to now get audiences to come out, and it's quite a hard thing to do. Of course, television can be conservative too.

I think this is interesting, us human creatures are capable of love, and it's a very powerful emotion. It also can go awfully wrong.

In some ways Holy Smoke is about people's journey to the heart.